The Things That You Remember

The mind’s capacity to remember things is somewhat limited. I’m no scientist, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t one that has figured out once and for all how much a person can remember, though many studies have been done to show capacity and selective memory.

What I find interesting are the things that people remember about certain situations. I can easily get myself crazy thinking about how something I said came out really stupid, but the person I am talking to may not remember it that way.

My fiance is someone who remembers really interesting details. He’s not very good with names (truth be told it took him a little bit to remember my name when we first met), but he remembers faces and can recognize people just from seeing them once in a photo. As a music and movie fan, he remembers every movie he has seen, in which theater, and who he was with. Same goes for concerts. He knows who he was with and where he was. These are details I don’t always remember, unless something super interesting happens (like how I almost got trampled at a Nine Inch Nails concert — that memory is fresh in mind, or those people who didn’t know MGMT’s music and sat there making out in front of us the whole time).

What I do remember is this. Things like this: The first time I saw my fiance to be; The moment I met my future best friend and maid of honor; my first kiss; the time I received a handwritten letter complete with a break up from my high school boyfriend; the time my good friend showed me self-inflicted cuts on her arms; waiting in the hospital as my college boyfriend got his stomach pumped; catching a fly ball in a softball game in 5th grade; the day I picked up my puppy for the first time; lip synching “I will remember you” in sleep away camp; saying good bye to people I loved who I knew I was never going to see again. I remember moments that made a difference in my life, turning points that at the time I didn’t know were turning points, and moments that I knew would never happen again. I remember people in my life who had an impact on me. I have good memories and I have bad. And I have people in my life to remind me of the things I have forgotten that I need to remember.

And all I can do is hope that I have made a positive impact on most of the people whose paths I was lucky enough to cross.